The use of information and communication technologies for the purposes of surveilance in working organizations: The case of Serbia

Abstract

This paper deals with the use of information and communication technologies for the purposes of surveillance in working organizations in general and in Serbia as well. Until now, explosive development of information and communication technologies provided unprecedented possibilities for employee's surveillance. In line with that, fundamental questions that lie in the core of this paper are, firstly, in which way and extent new surveillance technologies empower employers as owners of the complete production process, and secondly, whether usage of new surveillance technologies will fulfill the long-lasting capitalists desire to make workforce a predictable component of the working process. Beside defining theoretical framework and analyzing different aspects of work surveillance, we have conducted an empirical research in the form of 15 in-depth interviews with people employed in different types of Serbian working organizations. The results of our research showed that surveillance practice is widespread in both international and domestic working organizations. What is even more surprising, the employees, with the exception of rare and sporadic resistant strategies, quite readily accept surveillance as a natural fact without any idea that their working and human rights have been violated.

Keywords

• surveillance
• control
• working organizations
• ICT
• internet
• communication